I love getting in from a day of metal detecting and crabbing and sticking on all the bars on the gas fire whilst watching Countdown, chilling while my dad makes jacket potatoes for everyone. Caravan holidays have a special place in my heart. Camping holidays in a tent though, they can fuck off. I went on one when I was fourteen in August 2005 and never ever again.
We went to Blue Dolphin in Scarborough and although we didn’t need any basic survival skills as we had an electric hook-up, it still didn’t make life easier. Firstly it took about two hours to put up a four-man tent, as it had rained the night before so we had to put plastic sheets underneath the tent so we didn’t slide away. There was that much plastic all you had to do was move slightly or even breathe heavily and the whole tent sounded like a crisp packet rustling. On the first night it was so cold me and my mam had all our layers of clothes on, plus a sleeping bag and a sheet, and even then we had to put the hairdryer on and use it as central heating.
If this wasn’t bad enough, this was the night that in my family we refer to as Bluntgate. We were woken up (as tents are wafer thin) by a family of ten singing their lungs out.
‘You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful it’s true. I saw your face in a crowded place, I don’t know what to do …’
James Blunt’s ‘You’re Beautiful’, repeatedly from one in the morning for a full hour. As much as I love that song and it was huge at the time it now makes my heart hurt with anger when I hear it. If that also wasn’t bad enough, we all bunched together in the one compartment of the tent and Robert and Yazymn (my mam’s godchildren and my good friends) decided they wanted to squeeze in too. So now we were cold, tired and squashed. When I finally drifted to sleep I heard my dad let out a scream. It was still dark outside and we were all annoyed to be woken up. Turns out little Robert didn’t want to wake anyone to ask if someone would take him to the toilet so he just wet himself (he was only five so we let him off). But he had accidentally leaked all over my dad’s only coat. Which meant my dad was walking around for the rest of the holiday in polo shirts with no jacket on when everyone else had coats, scarves, hats and gloves on.
Despite all this it was still a hilarious holiday where we laughed from start to finish. Even though I was fourteen years old, every night in the club house I danced to all the classics: ‘Chocolate’, ‘Superman’, ‘YMCA’. It was even funny when things didn’t go to plan, like when we went to Scarborough Fair and it started raining cats and dogs so we all got soaked and ate fish and chips followed by a lemon-top ice cream in the rain on the beach.
See if you sit and really think about the last five items you bought, I bet you’re like me and you can’t off the top of your head. Yet I can almost relive every moment of that camping trip. As I have got older I’ve realised that your time is the most valuable gift you can give to anybody. Whether it’s a holiday abroad, a day on the beach or a weekend camping trip, it’s good to make memories away. As I was drifting off to sleep thinking about my old favourite book, Aesop’s Fables, a few of the quotes would stick in my mind. One that always did was:
‘Adventure is always worthwhile.’
Chapter Four
STRICTLY SCARLETT
During each BBC series of Strictly Come Dancing, approximately 57 litres of fake tan are used (my idea of heaven).
Conspiracy theorists say there are secret underground tunnels running from Blackpool Tower to the Winter Gardens that were once used by performers. Reports that Tupac and Elvis are currently held down there are unconfirmed.
Bruce Forsyth (who will sadly be missed, he really was the king of Strictly) was actually older than sliced bread. His own mother would have had to slice her own bread until Baby Bruce was four months old.
I remember my tummy feeling the same as it did on my first day of school. I didn’t just have butterflies in my stomach, I had the whole fucking zoo. I was sitting in the hallway on a bottle-green pleather (plastic leather) chair at Dianne White’s dance school with my mam. It was a clammy day and my bum was sticking to the seat. I was wearing a little white sparkly dress and silver sparkly dance shoes all ready for my first ever dance medal test. I felt like a princess, like a really nervous princess.
It was Sunday 31 August 1997 and I was only six. There were so many of us crammed in the hallway, packed in like a tin of sardines, as everyone was crowding round the little TV. They all gasped in horror and some even wept as they watched the horrific images on the BBC. The banner across the screen read: ‘Princess Diana dies in Paris crash’. We can all remember where we were on that day and that’s where I was. I remember feeling guilty that I was there dressed as a princess when the real princess would never get to wear dresses like that again. Such a sad day.
